Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Days after the Pakistanis closed their borders to the passage of fuel and supplies for the NATO-led war effort in Afghanistan, for very different reasons the Russians threatened to close the alternative Russia-controlled Northern Distribution Network (NDN). The dual threats are significant even if they don’t materialize. If both routes are cut, supplying Western forces operating in Afghanistan becomes impossible. Simply raising the possibility of cutting supply lines forces NATO and the United States to recalculate their position in Afghanistan.

The possibility of insufficient lines of supply puts NATO’s current course in Afghanistan in even more jeopardy. It also could make Western troops more vulnerable by possibly requiring significant alterations to operations in a supply-constrained scenario. While the supply lines in Pakistan most likely will reopen eventually and the NDN likely will remain open, the gap between likely and certain is vast.

The Pakistani Outpost Attack

The Pakistani decision to close the border crossings at Torkham near the Khyber Pass and Chaman followed a U.S. attack on a Pakistani position inside Pakistan’s tribal areas near the Afghan border that killed some two-dozen Pakistani soldiers. The Pakistanis have been increasingly opposed to U.S. operations inside Pakistani territory. This most recent incident took an unprecedented toll, and triggered an extreme response. The precise circumstances of the attack are unclear, with details few, contradictory and disputed. The Pakistanis have insisted it was an unprovoked attack and a violation of their sovereign territory. In response, Islamabad closed the border to NATO; ordered the United States out of Shamsi air base in Balochistan, used by the CIA; and is reviewing military and intelligence cooperation with the United States and NATO.

The proximate reason for the reaction is obvious; the ultimate reason for the suspension also is relatively simple. The Pakistani government believes NATO, and the United States in particular, will fail to bring the war in Afghanistan to a successful conclusion. It follows that the United States and other NATO countries at some point will withdraw.

Some in Afghanistan have claimed that the United States has been defeated, but that is not the case. The United States may have failed to win the war, but it has not been defeated in the sense of being compelled to leave by superior force. It could remain there indefinitely, particular as the American public is not overly hostile to the war and is not generating substantial pressure to end operations. Nevertheless, if the war cannot be brought to some sort of conclusion, at some point Washington’s calculations or public pressure, or both, will shift and the United States and its allies will leave Afghanistan.

Given that eventual outcome, Pakistan must prepare to deal with the consequences. It has no qualms about the Taliban running Afghanistan and it certainly does not intend to continue to prosecute the United States’ war against the Taliban once its forces depart. To do so would intensify Taliban attacks on the Pakistani state, and could trigger an even more intense civil war in Pakistan. The Pakistanis have no interest in such an outcome even were the United States to remain in Afghanistan forever. Instead, given that a U.S. victory is implausible and its withdrawal inevitable and that Pakistan’s western border is with Afghanistan, Islamabad will have to live with — and possibly manage — the consequences of the re-emergence of a Taliban-dominated government.

Under these circumstances, it makes little sense for Pakistan to collaborate excessively with the United States, as this increases Pakistan’s domestic dangers and imperils its relationship with the Taliban. Pakistan was prepared to cooperate with the United States and NATO while the United States was in an aggressive and unpredictable phase. The Pakistanis could not risk more aggressive U.S. attacks on Pakistani territory at that point, and feared a U.S.-Indian entente. But the United States, while not leaving Afghanistan, has lost its appetite for a wider war and lacks the resources for one. It is therefore in Pakistan’s interest to reduce its collaboration with the United States in preparation for what it sees as the inevitable outcome. This will strengthen Pakistan’s relations with the Afghan Taliban and minimize the threat of internal Pakistani conflict.

Despite apologies by U.S. and NATO commanders, the Nov. 26 incident provided the Pakistanis the opportunity — and in their mind the necessity — of an exceptional response. The suspension of the supply line without any commitment to reopening it and the closure of the U.S. air base from which unmanned aerial vehicle operations were carried out (though Pakistani airspace reportedly remains open to operations) was useful to Pakistan. It allowed Islamabad to reposition itself as hostile to the United States because of American actions. It also allowed Islamabad to appear less pro-American, a powerful domestic political issue.

Pakistan has closed supply lines as a punitive measure before. Torkham was closed for 10 straight days in October 2010 in response to a U.S. airstrike that killed several Pakistani soldiers, and trucks at the southern Chaman crossing were “administratively delayed,” according to the Pakistanis. This time, however, Pakistan is signaling that matters are more serious. Uncertainty over these supply lines is what drove the United States to expend considerable political capital to arrange the alternative NDN.

Pakistan, Russia and the Threat to the Afghan War(click here to enlarge image)

The NDN Alternative and BMD

This alternative depends on Russia. It transits Russian territory and airspace and much of the former Soviet sphere, stretching as far as the Baltic Sea — at great additional expense compared to the Pakistani supply route. This alternative is viable, as it would allow sufficient supplies to flow to support NATO operations. Indeed, over recent months it has become the primary line of supply, and reliance upon it is set to expand. At present, 48 percent of NATO supplies still go through Pakistan; 52 percent of NATO supplies come through NDN (non-lethal); 60 percent of all fuel comes through the NDN; and by the end of the year, the objective is for 75 percent of all non-lethal supplies to transit the NDN.

Separating the United States yields a different breakdown: Only 30 percent of U.S. supplies traverse Pakistan; 30 percent of U.S. supplies come in by air (some of it linked to the Karakoram-Torkham route, probably including the bulk of lethal weapons); and 40 percent of U.S. supplies come in from the NDN land route.

Therefore, Dmitri Rogozin’s threat that Russia might suspend these supply lines threatens the viability of all Western operations in Afghanistan. Rogozin, the Russian envoy to NATO, has been known to make extreme statements. But when he makes those statements, he makes them with the full knowledge and authorization of the Russian leadership. Though he is used to making statements that the leadership might want to back away from, it is not unusual for him to signal new directions in Russian policy. This means the U.S. and NATO militaries responsible for sustaining operations in Afghanistan cannot afford to dismiss the threat. No matter how small the probability, it places more than 100,000 U.S. and allied troops in a vulnerable position.

For the Russians, the issue is the development and deployment of U.S. ballistic missile defenses in Europe. The Russians oppose the deployment, arguing it represents a threat to the Russian nuclear deterrent and therefore threatens the nuclear balance. This was certainly the reason the Soviets opposed the initial Strategic Defense Initiative in the 1980s. Carrying it forward to the 2010s, however, and the reasoning appears faulty. First, there is no nuclear balance at the moment, as there is no political foundation for nuclear war. Second, the U.S.-European BMD scheme is not designed to stop a massive launch of nuclear missiles such as the Russians could execute, but only the threat posed by a very small number of missiles such as might be launched from Iran. Finally, it is not clear that the system would work very well, though it has certainly proven far more capable than the turn-of-the-century predecessor systems.

Nevertheless, the Russians vehemently opposed the system, threatening to deploy Iskander short-range ballistic missiles and even tactical nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad and other locations in response. The Russian concern is obviously real, but it is difficult to believe it is the nuclear balance they are concerned about. Rather, it is the geopolitical implications of placing BMD infrastructure in Central Europe.

Opposition to a Second Containment

Elements of the weapons, particularly radars and interceptors, are being deployed around the periphery of Russia — in Poland, Romania, Turkey and Israel. From the Russian point of view, the deployment of radars and other systems is a precursor to the deployment of other military capabilities. They are extremely valuable installations that must be protected. Troops therefore will be deployed along with air defenses, and so on. In other words, the deployment of the BMD infrastructure itself may have no practical impact on the Russians, but the indirect consequences would be to set the stage for more expansive military deployments. The Russians must assume this could entail a return to containment, the principle employed by the United States during the Cold War to limit Soviet power.

The Russians see the inclusion of other military forces at the locations of the interceptor and radar deployment as creating a belt of nations designed to contain Russia. Given the uncertain future of Europe and the increasing relative power of Russia in the region, the United States has an interest in making certain any disruption in Europe doesn’t give the Russians opportunities to extend their political influence. While the extent to which American planners chose the sites with the containment of Russia in mind isn’t clear, from the Russian point of view the motive doesn’t matter. Planning is done based on capability, not intent. Whatever the U.S. intent, the move opens the door for containment if and when U.S. policy planners notice the opportunity.

The Russians have threatened actions for years, and in the past few weeks they have become increasingly vocal on the subject of BMD and on threats. Rogozin obviously was ordered to seize on the vulnerability created by the Pakistani move and introduced the now-indispensible NDN as a point where the Russians could bring pressure, knowing it is the one move the United States cannot tolerate at the moment. Whether they intend to shut down the supply line is questionable. Doing so would cause a huge breach with the United States, and to this point the Russians have been relatively cautious in challenging fundamental U.S. interests. Moreover, the Russians are worried about any instability in Afghanistan that might threaten their sphere of influence in Central Asia. However, the Russians are serious about not permitting a new containment line to be created, and therefore may be shifting their own calculations.

It is a rule of war that secure strategic supply lines are the basis of warfare. If you cannot be certain of supplying your troops, it is necessary to redeploy to more favorable positions. The loss of supply lines at some point creates a vulnerability that in military history leads to the annihilation of forces. It is something that can be risked when major strategic interests require it, but it is a dangerous maneuver. The Russians are raising the possibility that U.S. forces could be isolated in Afghanistan. Supply lines into the landlocked country never have been under U.S. or NATO control. All supplies must come in through third countries (less than a third of American supplies come by air, and those mostly through Russian airspace), and their willingness to permit transit is the foundation of U.S. strategy.

The United States and NATO have been exposed as waging a war that depended on the willingness of first Pakistan and now increasingly Russia to permit the movement of supplies through their respective territories. Were they both to suspend that privilege, the United States would face the choice of going to war to seize supply lines — something well beyond U.S. conventional capacity at this time — or to concede the war. Anytime a force depends on the cooperation of parties not under its control to sustain its force, it is in danger.

The issue is not whether the threats are carried out. The issue is whether the strategic interest the United States has in Afghanistan justifies the risk that the Russians may not be bluffing and the Pakistanis will become even less reliable in allowing passage. In the event of strategic necessity, such risks can be taken. But the lower the strategic necessity, the less risk is tolerable. This does not change the strategic reality in Afghanistan. It simply makes that reality much clearer and the threats to that reality more serious. Washington, of course, hopes the Pakistanis will reconsider and that the Russians are simply blowing off steam. Hope, however, is not a strategy.

Read more: Pakistan, Russia and the Threat to the Afghan War | STRATFOR

RSIS presents the following commentary Year of the Arab Uprising: Impact on Southeast Asia by James M. Dorsey. It is also available online at this link. (To print it, click on this link.). Kindly forward any comments or feedback to the Editor RSIS Commentaries, at RSISPublication@ntu.edu.sg

No. 177/2011 dated 30 November 2011

Year of the Arab Uprising:Impact on Southeast Asia

By James M. Dorsey

Synopsis

The popular revolts sweeping the Middle East and North Africa are part of a global demand for political openness and transparency. Southeast Asia has so far proven adept in its response but has yet to address fundamental issues.

Commentary

TUNISIAN STREET vendor Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation was not simply a cry for justice, freedom and economic opportunity. It was an act of desperation in the face of humiliation, a cry for dignity that resonated with the masses across North Africa and the Middle East.

Bouazizi's death sparked a move to end not just the yoke of tyranny but of neo-patriarchic rule in which the autocratic father figure replicates himself throughout society from head of state to village chief to the head of the nuclear family. The system franchised authoritarian rule. As a result Bouazizi’s cry for dignity was and is a quest for citizenship rather than guardianship, for legitimate authority, transparency and ultimately true sovereignty.

Arguably, more than anything else, Bouazizi’s cry integrated the relatively inward-looking region from Morocco to the Gulf into a globalised world. The region became part of a global trend and in some ways its most resilient, poised to rewrite political geography. The demand for openness and transparency, fuelled by a perceived failure of existing institutions, manifests itself in different ways in different parts of the world. In the West it's Occupy Wall Street. In the Middle East and North Africa, pushing for greater transparency often meant violence to change ossified dictatorships incapable of accommodation of people's aspirations and reform.

Southeast Asia not immune

Southeast Asia has not been immune to the global trend. Nonetheless, to suggest that the Arab Spring would spark a counterpart uprising in Southeast Asia would be far-fetched. Southeast Asia was already confronting calls for change before the Arab revolt erupted and the impact of the trend in Southeast Asia is evident.

Myanmar has cautiously relaxed strict government control, Malaysia responded to sharp criticism of the police by repealing two sweeping security laws and lifting restrictions on the media and Thai voters returned to power the party of deposed premier Thaksin Shinawatra, a victory for his red-shirted supporters involved in bloody clashes with the military last year. In doing so, Southeast Asian governments have proven to be far more attuned than their Middle Eastern and North African counterparts to what was happening around them and have displayed a greater deal of vision and flexibility. Nonetheless, they will also require forward planning.

Ensuring energy security

When, rather than if, the Arab uprising inevitably spreads to the Gulf, Southeast Asian nations will have to define the risk to their energy security and develop alternatives in case of a disruption in oil and gas supplies as well as increase their focus on alternative energy options. Some, like the Philippines, will also have to deal with the impact of large numbers of migrant workers returning home to escape erupting turmoil.

Non-oil producing Southeast Asian nations like Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines depend on the Middle East for 70 percent of their oil and gas imports. In addition, Southeast Asia and the Middle East are crucial links in a seaborne commerce conveyor belt that runs from the Gulf to the Pacific. If the Straits of Malacca and Singapore were seen until now as potentially risky maritime choke points, today it is the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf and Bab el Mandeb between Somalia and Yemen that are more vulnerable.

Asia would be most affected if shipping particularly through the Straits of Hormuz were to be interrupted. The United States gets 22 percent of its oil from the Gulf, Europe about 30 percent but Asia all of 75 percent, which makes Asia having the most at stake in terms of energy security.

Southeast Asia’s strategic advantage

Almost a year into the Arab revolt, the Middle East and North Africa region is looking at up to a decade of volatility, uncertainty and bloodshed. The region may be the part of the world where resistance to change will prove to be most adamant with consequences far beyond its borders.

Southeast Asian nations, unlike those in the Middle East and North Africa, with few exceptions have demonstrated an ability to respond to demands for openness and transparency and sought to restore confidence in institutions in ways that do not escalate tensions. Nonetheless, steps taken by Southeast Asian government are likely to prove insufficient. Those steps are by and large designed to remove immediate lightning rods and release pent-up frustration but often do not really address basic grievances, among which corruption figures prominently.

A majority of Southeast Asian governments, unlike their Middle Eastern and North African counterparts, enjoy varying degrees of popularity and legitimacy. To the extent that there is a desire for change, it is a desire to effect change with the government, not in spite of it. That is an asset few Middle Eastern rulers can claim. However to maintain that strategic advantage, Southeast Asian nations will have to develop enlightened, proactive policies that go beyond removing immediate irritants and address real concerns.

James M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. He has been a journalist covering the Middle East for over 30 years.

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The Fed claims that these coordinated actions will enhance their capacity to provide liquidity support to the global financial system in order to "ease strains in financial markets and thereby mitigate the effects of such strains on the supply of credit to households and businesses and so help foster economic activity."

It was also announced this morning that arrangements have been made to establish temporary bilateral liquidity swap arrangements so that liquidity can be provided in each jurisdiction in any of their currencies should market conditions so warrant. Although the Fed said, "there is no need to offer liquidity in non-domestic currencies other than the U.S. dollar" at this time, the stage is now set to create massive worldwide monetary inflation in other fiat currencies as well. The whole entire global fiat currency system could soon come to an end. The only solution to the upcoming hyperinflationary crisis will be a global digital gold backed currency.

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Tuesday, November 29, 2011

RSIS presents the following commentary “Armada Jaya XXX/11” Naval Exercise: Indonesia’s Naval Strategy by Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto. It is also available online at this link. (To print it, click on this link.). Kindly forward any comments or feedback to the Editor RSIS Commentaries, at RSISPublication@ntu.edu.sg

No. 176/2011 dated 29 November 2011

“Armada Jaya XXX/11” Naval Exercise:

Indonesia’s Naval Strategy

By Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto

Synopsis

Indonesia recently concluded a naval exercise close to disputed waters. This serves as a hint of Indonesia’s future naval contingency planning and broader military strategy.

Commentary

THE INDONESIAN Navy (TNI-AL) has just concluded a naval exercise codenamed “Armada Jaya XXX-11” (AJ XXX/11) in waters off Sangatta, East Kalimantan, roughly 330 nautical miles (nm) south of the disputed Ambalat waters with Malaysia. The exercise, which started from 31 October to 18 November 2011, involved over 4000 naval personnel, including 2500 marines; 23 vessels, 11 aircraft, and 93 military vehicles.

The exercise was intended to enhance the TNI-AL’s sea control and amphibious capabilities, which have recently been upgraded with new platforms and weapon systems. Given the proximity of the exercise to disputed waters, and its location at the Makassar Strait used for international navigation, what does this tell us about the TNI-AL’s future contingency planning? And how does it fit into the broader Indonesian military (TNI) strategy?

Armada Jaya XXX/11

AJ XXX/11 began with a scenario that an enemy seaborne task force had infringed Ambalat waters and cut through the TNI’s Tarakan-Sangatta line of communications. In response, TNI-AL mobilised its assets to retake Ambalat and mounted an amphibious landing at Sangatta to round-up the enemy’s ground forces. TNI-AL also conducted sea control exercises en route to the area, such as anti-surface, anti-submarine, and anti-air warfare drills.

This exercise correlates with the TNI-AL strategy of “Archipelagic Sea Defence Strategy” (Strategi Pertahanan Laut Nusantara, SPLN), which puts an emphasis on “strategic funnels” (corong strategis). Simply defined, “strategic funnels” refer to the bodies of water located at both ends of Indonesia’s three north-south archipelagic sea lanes (ASLs). The AJ XXX/11 was conducted at the northern end of the second ASL, which runs from the Lombok Strait to Makassar Strait and ends in the Sulawesi Sea.

The TNI-AL has perceived the strategic funnels as potential future flashpoints, considering its proximity to neighbouring countries, abundant marine resources, and unresolved maritime boundary disputes. They are also where naval forces can be effectively concentrated to interdict any enemy fleet. Apart from Ambalat, TNI-AL is equally wary about the Natuna Sea where China’s “nine-dash” line claim overlaps with Indonesia’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Also flanked by Malaysia on both east and west, the Natuna Sea, with all the hydrocarbon reserves it contains, is geostrategically Indonesia’s northern underbelly.

The Natuna and Sulawesi Seas were the main TNI-AL deployment areas in the first TNI quadrennial Yudha Siaga (Ready for War) tri-service exercise in 2008, conducted along the Batam-Natuna-Singkawang-Sangatta northern defence perimeter. The AJ XXX/11 was also a preparation for the second Yudha Siaga scheduled for mid-2012.

Indonesian Naval and Military Strategy

As an archipelagic country, Indonesia’s strategic attention is divided between its external and internal maritime security environments. This makes TNI-AL force deployment different from the navies of continental and island states. By virtue of their geographical conditions, the latter can deploy their naval assets exclusively for EEZs and external sea lines of communications (SLOCs) protection, while TNI-AL’s attention remains confined to ASLs and archipelagic waters security. There is almost negligible attention to Indonesia’s external SLOCs. As such, TNI-AL strategy remains solely focused on sea control and power projection within Indonesia’s territorial seas and archipelagic waters.

When facing a stronger fleet, TNI-AL also has its own anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) concept. This concept envisages a substantial deployment of naval mines and, in deeper waters, submarines, in and around the strategic funnels to interdict an enemy’s SLOCs in Indonesian waters, prevent enemy seaborne forces from mounting amphibious landings, and deny the enemy a beachhead access. Hence, in the TNI-AL 2005 “Green-Water-Navy” blueprint, mine-laying vessels and submarines are among the top priorities to be acquired by 2024.

But, how does the SPLN fit into the broader TNI strategy? The TNI-AL and the Air Force (TNI-AU) will form the spearhead to interdict any hostile adversaries heading toward Indonesia’s strategic funnels. They make up the first layer of Indonesia’s concentric defence circles where “strategic offensive” (ofensif strategis) operations will be mainly conducted. In Ambalat’s case, for example, TNI-AU jet fighters from Sultan Hasanuddin Air Force Base in Makassar can provide air support for naval forces deployed in Sulawesi Sea.

A Maritime Defence Strategy

The TNI-AL strategy is essentially defensive. It does not adhere to the Mahanian concept of command of the sea, nor does it attempt to project naval assets beyond Indonesian waters. Rather, it is skewed toward sea control and amphibious operations conducted within Indonesia’s EEZs and archipelagic waters. However, it is assessed that TNI-AL is preparing the stage for potential contingencies in strategic funnels as far as Indonesia’s traditional threats are concerned. Considering the maritime nature of these threats, it is perhaps more relevant for the TNI-AL to have a more robust posture and deployment based on the following considerations:

Firstly, TNI-AL could be tasked solely for EEZs and external SLOCs protection. TNI-AL attention is currently divided between protecting external SLOCs and EEZs, and policing the ASLs and archipelagic waters. To address this problem one alternative would be to enhance the Coast Guard capability for gradually taking over TNI-AL’s role for ASLs and archipelagic waters security.

Secondly, Indonesia must formulate a maritime defence strategy. This strategy should guide TNI-AL and TNI-AU operations in the strategic funnels and beyond. Accordingly, both services must be tailored for long-range maritime interdiction enabled by more and better in-flight refuelling and naval replenishment capabilities.

Lastly, the TNI Law No. 34/2004 needs to be revised since it limits TNI-AL deployment to only within “national jurisdictional waters.” The revised TNI Law must legally sanction regular deployment of TNI-AL units for external SLOCs protection and other naval operations to support Indonesian national interests abroad.

A maritime approach to defence strategy that encompasses its ASLs, EEZs and SLOCs will enhance Indonesia’s capability to protect its extensive archipelagic interests and broaden its maritime horizons well into the Indian and Pacific oceans.

Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto is a Research Analyst with the Maritime Security Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. He was previously a researcher at the Centre of East Asian Cooperation Studies (CEACoS), University of Indonesia.

> Ron Paul has a golden opportunity to take the gloves off and knock Herman Cain to the mat over Cain's years working for the Federal Reserve Board, and Cain's praise for former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, which most Republicans are not aware of.>> This is similar to the impersonation of Ron Paul by Rick Perry, the ill-fated former darling of the right who was revealed as a pay-for-play politician and bogus conservative. If Paul takes the gloves off with Cain, he can prove himself to be the authentic voice, and prove Cain to be yet another impostor.>> If Rick Perry falls, as I have predicted, and Paul goes head to head with Cain, it is possible that Ron Paul could emerge as the leading candidate of both conservatives and libertarians.>> The facts are that Herman Cain served on the Federal Reserve of Kansas City, Cain served on its board, Cain became chairman of the Kansas City Fed and Cain heaped praise on former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan.>> Most Republicans do not know this. 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CEO Jamie Dimon told shareholders in a March 26, 2010, letter that his bank used the Fed’s Term Auction Facility “at the request of the Federal Reserve to help motivate others to use the system.” He didn’t say that the New York-based bank’s total TAF borrowings were almost twice its cash holdings or that its peak borrowing of $48 billion on Feb. 26, 2009, came more than a year after the program’s creation.>> Howard Opinsky, a spokesman for JPMorgan (JPM), declined to comment about Dimon’s statement or the company’s Fed borrowings. Jerry Dubrowski, a spokesman for Bank of America, also declined to comment.>> The Fed has been lending money to banks through its so- called discount window since just after its founding in 1913. Starting in August 2007, when confidence in banks began to wane, it created a variety of ways to bolster the financial system with cash or easily traded securities. By the end of 2008, the central bank had established or expanded 11 lending facilities catering to banks, securities firms and corporations that couldn’t get short-term loans from their usual sources.>> ‘Core Function’>> “Supporting financial-market stability in times of extreme market stress is a core function of central banks,” says William B. English, director of the Fed’s Division of Monetary Affairs. “Our lending programs served to prevent a collapse of the financial system and to keep credit flowing to American families and businesses.”>> The Fed has said that all loans were backed by appropriate collateral. That the central bank didn’t lose money should “lead to praise of the Fed, that they took this extraordinary step and they got it right,” says Phillip Swagel, a former assistant Treasury secretary under Henry M. Paulson and now a professor of international economic policy at the University of Maryland.>> The Fed initially released lending data in aggregate form only. Information on which banks borrowed, when, how much and at what interest rate was kept from public view.>> The secrecy extended even to members of President George W. Bush’s administration who managed TARP. Top aides to Paulson weren’t privy to Fed lending details during the creation of the program that provided crisis funding to more than 700 banks, say two former senior Treasury officials who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak.>> Big Six>> The Treasury Department relied on the recommendations of the Fed to decide which banks were healthy enough to get TARP money and how much, the former officials say. The six biggest U.S. banks, which received $160 billion of TARP funds, borrowed as much as $460 billion from the Fed, measured by peak daily debt calculated by Bloomberg using data obtained from the central bank. Paulson didn’t respond to a request for comment.>> The six -- JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup Inc. (C), Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Morgan Stanley -- accounted for 63 percent of the average daily debt to the Fed by all publicly traded U.S. banks, money managers and investment- services firms, the data show. By comparison, they had about half of the industry’s assets before the bailout, which lasted from August 2007 through April 2010. The daily debt figure excludes cash that banks passed along to money-market funds.>> Bank Supervision>> While the emergency response prevented financial collapse, the Fed shouldn’t have allowed conditions to get to that point, says Joshua Rosner, a banking analyst with Graham Fisher & Co. in New York who predicted problems from lax mortgage underwriting as far back as 2001. The Fed, the primary supervisor for large financial companies, should have been more vigilant as the housing bubble formed, and the scale of its lending shows the “supervision of the banks prior to the crisis was far worse than we had imagined,” Rosner says.>> Bernanke in an April 2009 speech said that the Fed provided emergency loans only to “sound institutions,” even though its internal assessments described at least one of the biggest borrowers, Citigroup, as “marginal.”>> On Jan. 14, 2009, six days before the company’s central bank loans peaked, the New York Fed gave CEO Vikram Pandit a report declaring Citigroup’s financial strength to be “superficial,” bolstered largely by its $45 billion of Treasury funds. The document was released in early 2011 by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, a panel empowered by Congress to probe the causes of the crisis.>> ‘Need Transparency’>> Andrea Priest, a spokeswoman for the New York Fed, declined to comment, as did Jon Diat, a spokesman for Citigroup.>> “I believe that the Fed should have independence in conducting highly technical monetary policy, but when they are putting taxpayer resources at risk, we need transparency and accountability,” says Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee.>> Judd Gregg, a former New Hampshire senator who was a lead Republican negotiator on TARP, and Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who chaired the House Financial Services Committee, both say they were kept in the dark.>> “We didn’t know the specifics,” says Gregg, who’s now an adviser to Goldman Sachs.>> “We were aware emergency efforts were going on,” Frank says. “We didn’t know the specifics.”>> Disclose Lending>> Frank co-sponsored the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, billed as a fix for financial-industry excesses. Congress debated that legislation in 2010 without a full understanding of how deeply the banks had depended on the Fed for survival.>> It would have been “totally appropriate” to disclose the lending data by mid-2009, says David Jones, a former economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York who has written four books about the central bank.>> “The Fed is the second-most-important appointed body in the U.S., next to the Supreme Court, and we’re dealing with a democracy,” Jones says. “Our representatives in Congress deserve to have this kind of information so they can oversee the Fed.”>> The Dodd-Frank law required the Fed to release details of some emergency-lending programs in December 2010. It also mandated disclosure of discount-window borrowers after a two- year lag.>> Protecting TARP>> TARP and the Fed lending programs went “hand in hand,” says Sherrill Shaffer, a banking professor at the University of Wyoming in Laramie and a former chief economist at the New York Fed. While the TARP money helped insulate the central bank from losses, the Fed’s willingness to supply seemingly unlimited financing to the banks assured they wouldn’t collapse, protecting the Treasury’s TARP investments, he says.>> “Even though the Treasury was in the headlines, the Fed was really behind the scenes engineering it,” Shaffer says.>> Congress, at the urging of Bernanke and Paulson, created TARP in October 2008 after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. made it difficult for financial institutions to get loans. Bank of America and New York-based Citigroup each received $45 billion from TARP. At the time, both were tapping the Fed. Citigroup hit its peak borrowing of $99.5 billion in January 2009, while Bank of America topped out in February 2009 at $91.4 billion.>> No Clue>> Lawmakers knew none of this.>> They had no clue that one bank, New York-based Morgan Stanley (MS), took $107 billion in Fed loans in September 2008, enough to pay off one-tenth of the country’s delinquent mortgages. The firm’s peak borrowing occurred the same day Congress rejected the proposed TARP bill, triggering the biggest point drop ever in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. (INDU) The bill later passed, and Morgan Stanley got $10 billion of TARP funds, though Paulson said only “healthy institutions” were eligible.>> Mark Lake, a spokesman for Morgan Stanley, declined to comment, as did spokesmen for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.>> Had lawmakers known, it “could have changed the whole approach to reform legislation,” says Ted Kaufman, a former Democratic Senator from Delaware who, with Brown, introduced the bill to limit bank size.>> Moral Hazard>> Kaufman says some banks are so big that their failure could trigger a chain reaction in the financial system. The cost of borrowing for so-called too-big-to-fail banks is lower than that of smaller firms because lenders believe the government won’t let them go under. The perceived safety net creates what economists call moral hazard -- the belief that bankers will take greater risks because they’ll enjoy any profits while shifting losses to taxpayers.>> If Congress had been aware of the extent of the Fed rescue, Kaufman says, he would have been able to line up more support for breaking up the biggest banks.>> Byron L. Dorgan, a former Democratic senator from North Dakota, says the knowledge might have helped pass legislation to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, which for most of the last century separated customer deposits from the riskier practices of investment banking.>> “Had people known about the hundreds of billions in loans to the biggest financial institutions, they would have demanded Congress take much more courageous actions to stop the practices that caused this near financial collapse,” says Dorgan, who retired in January.>> Getting Bigger>> Instead, the Fed and its secret financing helped America’s biggest financial firms get bigger and go on to pay employees as much as they did at the height of the housing bubble.>> Total assets held by the six biggest U.S. banks increased 39 percent to $9.5 trillion on Sept. 30, 2011, from $6.8 trillion on the same day in 2006, according to Fed data.>> For so few banks to hold so many assets is “un-American,” says Richard W. Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. “All of these gargantuan institutions are too big to regulate. I’m in favor of breaking them up and slimming them down.”>> Employees at the six biggest banks made twice the average for all U.S. workers in 2010, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics hourly compensation cost data. The banks spent $146.3 billion on compensation in 2010, or an average of $126,342 per worker, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s up almost 20 percent from five years earlier compared with less than 15 percent for the average worker. Average pay at the banks in 2010 was about the same as in 2007, before the bailouts.>> ‘Wanted to Pretend’>> “The pay levels came back so fast at some of these firms that it appeared they really wanted to pretend they hadn’t been bailed out,” says Anil Kashyap, a former Fed economist who’s now a professor of economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. “They shouldn’t be surprised that a lot of people find some of the stuff that happened totally outrageous.”>> Bank of America took over Merrill Lynch & Co. at the urging of then-Treasury Secretary Paulson after buying the biggest U.S. home lender, Countrywide Financial Corp. When the Merrill Lynch purchase was announced on Sept. 15, 2008, Bank of America had $14.4 billion in emergency Fed loans and Merrill Lynch had $8.1 billion. By the end of the month, Bank of America’s loans had reached $25 billion and Merrill Lynch’s had exceeded $60 billion, helping both firms keep the deal on track.>> Prevent Collapse>> Wells Fargo bought Wachovia Corp., the fourth-largest U.S. bank by deposits before the 2008 acquisition. Because depositors were pulling their money from Wachovia, the Fed channeled $50 billion in secret loans to the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank through two emergency-financing programs to prevent collapse before Wells Fargo could complete the purchase.>> “These programs proved to be very successful at providing financial markets the additional liquidity and confidence they needed at a time of unprecedented uncertainty,” says Ancel Martinez, a spokesman for Wells Fargo.>> JPMorgan absorbed the country’s largest savings and loan, Seattle-based Washington Mutual Inc., and investment bank Bear Stearns Cos. The New York Fed, then headed by Timothy F. Geithner, who’s now Treasury secretary, helped JPMorgan complete the Bear Stearns deal by providing $29 billion of financing, which was disclosed at the time. The Fed also supplied Bear Stearns with $30 billion of secret loans to keep the company from failing before the acquisition closed, central bank data show. The loans were made through a program set up to provide emergency funding to brokerage firms.>> ‘Regulatory Discretion’>> “Some might claim that the Fed was picking winners and losers, but what the Fed was doing was exercising its professional regulatory discretion,” says John Dearie, a former speechwriter at the New York Fed who’s now executive vice president for policy at the Financial Services Forum, a Washington-based group consisting of the CEOs of 20 of the world’s biggest financial firms. “The Fed clearly felt it had what it needed within the requirements of the law to continue to lend to Bear and Wachovia.”>> The bill introduced by Brown and Kaufman in April 2010 would have mandated shrinking the six largest firms.>> “When a few banks have advantages, the little guys get squeezed,” Brown says. “That, to me, is not what capitalism should be.”>> Kaufman says he’s passionate about curbing too-big-to-fail banks because he fears another crisis.>> ‘Can We Survive?’>> “The amount of pain that people, through no fault of their own, had to endure -- and the prospect of putting them through it again -- is appalling,” Kaufman says. “The public has no more appetite for bailouts. What would happen tomorrow if one of these big banks got in trouble? Can we survive that?”>> Lobbying expenditures by the six banks that would have been affected by the legislation rose to $29.4 million in 2010 compared with $22.1 million in 2006, the last full year before credit markets seized up -- a gain of 33 percent, according to OpenSecrets.org, a research group that tracks money in U.S. politics. Lobbying by the American Bankers Association, a trade organization, increased at about the same rate, OpenSecrets.org reported.>> Lobbyists argued the virtues of bigger banks. They’re more stable, better able to serve large companies and more competitive internationally, and breaking them up would cost jobs and cause “long-term damage to the U.S. economy,” according to a Nov. 13, 2009, letter to members of Congress from the FSF.>> The group’s website cites Nobel Prize-winning economist Oliver E. Williamson, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, for demonstrating the greater efficiency of large companies.>> ‘Serious Burden’>> In an interview, Williamson says that the organization took his research out of context and that efficiency is only one factor in deciding whether to preserve too-big-to-fail banks.>> “The banks that were too big got even bigger, and the problems that we had to begin with are magnified in the process,” Williamson says. “The big banks have incentives to take risks they wouldn’t take if they didn’t have government support. It’s a serious burden on the rest of the economy.”>> Dearie says his group didn’t mean to imply that Williamson endorsed big banks.>> Top officials in President Barack Obama’s administration sided with the FSF in arguing against legislative curbs on the size of banks.>> Geithner, Kaufman>> On May 4, 2010, Geithner visited Kaufman in his Capitol Hill office. As president of the New York Fed in 2007 and 2008, Geithner helped design and run the central bank’s lending programs. The New York Fed supervised four of the six biggest U.S. banks and, during the credit crunch, put together a daily confidential report on Wall Street’s financial condition. Geithner was copied on these reports, based on a sampling of e- mails released by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.>> At the meeting with Kaufman, Geithner argued that the issue of limiting bank size was too complex for Congress and that people who know the markets should handle these decisions, Kaufman says. According to Kaufman, Geithner said he preferred that bank supervisors from around the world, meeting in Basel, Switzerland, make rules increasing the amount of money banks need to hold in reserve. Passing laws in the U.S. would undercut his efforts in Basel, Geithner said, according to Kaufman.>> Anthony Coley, a spokesman for Geithner, declined to comment.>> ‘Punishing Success’>> Lobbyists for the big banks made the winning case that forcing them to break up was “punishing success,” Brown says. Now that they can see how much the banks were borrowing from the Fed, senators might think differently, he says.>> The Fed supported curbing too-big-to-fail banks, including giving regulators the power to close large financial firms and implementing tougher supervision for big banks, says Fed General Counsel Scott G. Alvarez. The Fed didn’t take a position on whether large banks should be dismantled before they get into trouble.>> Dodd-Frank does provide a mechanism for regulators to break up the biggest banks. It established the Financial Stability Oversight Council that could order teetering banks to shut down in an orderly way. The council is headed by Geithner.>> “Dodd-Frank does not solve the problem of too big to fail,” says Shelby, the Alabama Republican. “Moral hazard and taxpayer exposure still very much exist.”>> Below Market>> Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, says banks “were either in bad shape or taking advantage of the Fed giving them a good deal. The former contradicts their public statements. The latter -- getting loans at below-market rates during a financial crisis -- is quite a gift.”>> The Fed says it typically makes emergency loans more expensive than those available in the marketplace to discourage banks from abusing the privilege. During the crisis, Fed loans were among the cheapest around, with funding available for as low as 0.01 percent in December 2008, according to data from the central bank and money-market rates tracked by Bloomberg.>> The Fed funds also benefited firms by allowing them to avoid selling assets to pay investors and depositors who pulled their money. So the assets stayed on the banks’ books, earning interest.>> Banks report the difference between what they earn on loans and investments and their borrowing expenses. The figure, known as net interest margin, provides a clue to how much profit the firms turned on their Fed loans, the costs of which were included in those expenses. To calculate how much banks stood to make, Bloomberg multiplied their tax-adjusted net interest margins by their average Fed debt during reporting periods in which they took emergency loans.>> Added Income>> The 190 firms for which data were available would have produced income of $13 billion, assuming all of the bailout funds were invested at the margins reported, the data show.>> The six biggest U.S. banks’ share of the estimated subsidy was $4.8 billion, or 23 percent of their combined net income during the time they were borrowing from the Fed. Citigroup would have taken in the most, with $1.8 billion.>> “The net interest margin is an effective way of getting at the benefits that these large banks received from the Fed,” says Gerald A. Hanweck, a former Fed economist who’s now a finance professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.>> While the method isn’t perfect, it’s impossible to state the banks’ exact profits or savings from their Fed loans because the numbers aren’t disclosed and there isn’t enough publicly available data to figure it out.>> Opinsky, the JPMorgan spokesman, says he doesn’t think the calculation is fair because “in all likelihood, such funds were likely invested in very short-term investments,” which typically bring lower returns.>> Standing Access>> Even without tapping the Fed, the banks get a subsidy by having standing access to the central bank’s money, says Viral Acharya, a New York University economics professor who has worked as an academic adviser to the New York Fed.>> “Banks don’t give lines of credit to corporations for free,” he says. “Why should all these government guarantees and liquidity facilities be for free?”>> In the September 2008 meeting at which Paulson and Bernanke briefed lawmakers on the need for TARP, Bernanke said that if nothing was done, “unemployment would rise -- to 8 or 9 percent from the prevailing 6.1 percent,” Paulson wrote in “On the Brink” (Business Plus, 2010).>> Occupy Wall Street>> The U.S. jobless rate hasn’t dipped below 8.8 percent since March 2009, 3.6 million homes have been foreclosed since August 2007, according to data provider RealtyTrac Inc., and police have clashed with Occupy Wall Street protesters, who say government policies favor the wealthiest citizens, in New York, Boston, Seattle and Oakland, California.>> The Tea Party, which supports a more limited role for government, has its roots in anger over the Wall Street bailouts, says Neil M. Barofsky, former TARP special inspector general and a Bloomberg Television contributing editor.>> “The lack of transparency is not just frustrating; it really blocked accountability,” Barofsky says. “When people don’t know the details, they fill in the blanks. They believe in conspiracies.”>> In the end, Geithner had his way. The Brown-Kaufman proposal to limit the size of banks was defeated, 60 to 31. Bank supervisors meeting in Switzerland did mandate minimum reserves that institutions will have to hold, with higher levels for the world’s largest banks, including the six biggest in the U.S. Those rules can be changed by individual countries.>> They take full effect in 2019.>> Meanwhile, Kaufman says, “we’re absolutely, totally, 100 percent not prepared for another financial crisis.”>> To contact the reporters on this story: Bob Ivry in New York at bivry@bloomberg.net; Bradley Keoun in New York at bkeoun@bloomberg.net; Phil Kuntz in New York at pkuntz1@bloomberg.net.>> To contact the editors responsible for this story: Gary Putka at gputka@bloomberg.net; David Scheer at dscheer@bloomberg.net.>

The Daily Bell once again seems to be getting it right regarding the Middle East and the machinations of the west’s out of control money-elite:Now It\’s Syria\’s Turn to be ConqueredClearly, the Daily Bell believes this is all engineering, for the purpose of creating a semi-united “Islamic bloc” which can then fulfill the role the old Soviet Union once fulfilled as the “most favored enemy” status in an ever widening “war on terror”.Well, it may or may not be, but for the sake of argument, let’s assume this is what Zbukgnislob Rzbesczdeski and his Rockefailure-Rottenchild mentors have in mind. What would result from this would be the creation of a world with clearly discernible “civilizational blocs”: (1) the “West”, meaning the North America-Europe-Australia axis(we’ll call it the Washington/London-Berlin-Canberra axis); (2) the “Islamic bloc”; (4) Russia; (5) the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (to borrow from World War Two Japanese geopolitical thinking), comprising China, Japan, and all those other guys over there, including India; and finally (5) All the rest.Now the interesting thing about this alignment is that it neatly dovetails with Huntington’s divisions of civilization in his now well-known Clash of Civilizations. In other words, it would appear that the behavior of the western elite is precisely to consolidate its position within a civilization, with the predictable result that the elites of those other civilizations are consolidating theirs, and entering into alliances that – lo and behold – dovetail neatly with the above scheme: consider only how China and Russia have clearly let it be known that Western military action against Iran would be a big no no.Now, for those who follow such things, this is also the scheme first proposed in the nineteenth century by one Cyrus Scofield, in his well-known Scofield Reference Bible, that textbook of supposed “Christian” teaching about the final events leading up to the two-stage second coming of Christ known as the Rapture, in which the powers of the North (Russia), and the East (China, Iran), march on God’s chosen (Israel), and a United Europe (Revived Roman Empire), all get into the carnage et voila, they’re all defeated and a new era of peace breaks out under the iron rule of Antichrist, who is deposed by Christ, who restores peace under….er…and iron rule, in a scenario in which the only distinguishing feature between anti-Christ and Christ is not the morality and behavior in evidence from the two, but rather, merely when each appears on the stage.All this of course, from any traditional historical point of view of Christian doctrine, is of course, nonsense, as it was never a part of Christian doctrine, leaving one to wonder how Scofield – a self-styled “doctor” for whom there is no evidence whatsoever of any seminary attendance or advanced degree has ever been found – managed to get all this nonsense published and promoted by no less than the Oxford University Press, the suggestion implied being, of course, that this perception of events was being managed and put into play deliberately. (Scofield got his "Reference Bible" published because his mentor, patron and controller, was Samuel Untermeyer, a Lawyer, Publisher, and one of the most powerful Zionists of his time. Untermeyer ensured the success of the Scofield Bible. This is how international zionism captured sixty million weak minded people and convinced them that they should kill Muslims for Christ. What we are seeing today is "orchestrated apocalypse theater." Pure evil. Purely Satanic.) It makes one wonder, then, why the disturbing parallels between someone as nutty as Scofield, and someone as smart as Huntington, exist…The parallels are definitely there. And I think they point to a deliberately orchestrated “apocalypse theater,”

“The Chinese have been building huge structures in the desert for a long time. Back in 2006, they built this 1:20 scale model of disputed border region between China and India. That’s a terrain model 0.7 kilometer wide by almost 1 kilometer tall. Uncanny. Why would they build such a model of a terrain? To play a 1:20 scale war with 1:20 scale tanks? Mind boggling.” — Gizmodo readers are poring through Google Maps and discovering some odd and gigantic structures that China’s been building in the desert. Experts have suggested they might be there to calibrate spy satellites.

The Philippines has been making waves in the South China Sea of late. It has settled to refer to the disputed waters as the "West Philippine Sea," sent officials to claim sovereignty on a disputed island and called on ASEAN countries to form a united front against China. The cabinet members of the Philippines have boldly lashed out against China, publicizing that the US-Philippine military cooperation is a strong warning signal.

These Philippine provocations bring negative political influences to the region, although some of them are only pet "performance projects" of the Philippine government. China must take fitting measures to pay the Philippines back. This is necessary to prevent another country taking a leaf out of the Philippines' book against China.

Currently, a similar strategy is prevailing among other East Asian countries, that is, benefiting from economic cooperation with China as much as possible while containing China's influences by either joining with the US or forcing China to make concessions on disputed issues. The Philippines is carrying out such a strategy.

China' punishment on the Philippines should be strong enough to offset negative influences brought by the Philippine insolence and discourage the dream of some nations to join with the US to contain China.

The pressure of domestic opinion is no excuse to forgive the Philippines' irresponsible behavior. The Philippines' unfavorable attitude toward China will not change quickly, but as long as punishing the Philippines does not affect the steady relations between China and other neighboring countries, the Philippines has fewer cards to play than China in the long run.

China's punishment on the Philippines should not go overboard, but should let the Philippines pay the real price. The best way is to ignore the Philippines when China is intensifying cooperation with other Southeast Asian countries.

Economic means are the first choice. China could postpone the implementation of investment agreements. Chinese people could reject traveling to the Philippines and China should decrease imports from the Philippines. China is the third largest trading partner of the Philippines and this would be a grievous blow indeed. As a country whose GDP per capita is only about $2,000, the Philippines expects much from China to stimulus its economic growth. Any slowdown in Sino-Philippine cooperation will put long-term pressure on the country.

Meanwhile, China should enhance cooperation with countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, allowing them to benefit more from the Philippine vacuum.

China has no intention to have a military clash toward the Philippines. But it should prepare to strike back, if the Philippines makes the first armed move. China's punishment against the Philippines should also be convincing. Shocking neighboring countries might be inevitable, but China needs to be both careful and decisive.

RSIS presents the following commentary Stepping up Sanctions: Arab and Turkish Pressures on Syria by James M. Dorsey. It is also available online at this link. (To print it, click on this link.). Kindly forward any comments or feedback to the Editor RSIS Commentaries, at RSISPublication@ntu.edu.sg

No. 175/2011 dated 24 November 2011

Stepping up Sanctions:Arab and Turkish Pressures on Syria

By James M. Dorsey

Synopsis

Pressure is mounting on Turkey to lead a potential military intervention to stop the bloodletting in Syria. However, sanctions by Arab states and Turkey on the regime of President Bashar al-Assad could become an effective policy tool.

Commentary

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is looking to Turkey rather than the United States and Europe to intervene militarily to stop the Assad regime’s violent suppression of a nine-month-old rebellion. In meetings with Turkish officials, the leader of the MB, Mohammad Riad Shakfa, and representatives of the Syrian National Council have urged Turkey to enforce a no-fly zone above Syria and, if military intervention becomes unavoidable, they want Turkey to take the lead.

Turkey is already providing tacit support to the rebel Syrian Free Army, which has a camp on the Turkish side of the border and in recent days has staged more deadly attacks on Syrian military targets. Turkey has also allowed the political opposition to use Istanbul as a base.

Turkish Dilemma

Nonetheless, despite Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s increasingly emotional denunciations of the Assad regime, Ankara is finding it difficult to step up the pressure on Syria without risking Turkish interests in the short term. Turkey’s reluctance so far to impose sanctions of its own when the Arab League is about to step up to the plate, risks its losing the moral high ground it achieved in part by taking the lead in condemning the Syrian crackdown and demanding that Israel lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Erdogan has so far been long on rhetoric and short on actions, partly because of differences between the government and the military. While Erdogan describes Syria’s crisis as Turkey’s “internal problem”, army chief of staff General Necdet Ozel recently insisted that it was “primarily the internal problem of that country”. As a result, Erdogan, in addition to holding back on sanctions and dropping plans to create a humanitarian buffer zone on the Turkish-Syrian border, has yet to fulfill his promise to visit camps for Syrian refugees in eastern Turkey.

Turkish officials fear that imposing sanctions, let alone overt military intervention, could open Pandora’s Box with Syria and its ally Iran; Tehran could be pushed to increase its support for the Turkish Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) that has already stepped up its attacks on military targets in southeastern Turkey. In return, Turkey would have to step up its retaliation against PKK bases in northern Iraq and support unrest in some of Iran’s more restive provinces such as Eastern Azerbaijan whose majority Turkic population resents Persian rule. All in all, the crisis in Syria would risk becoming a regional conflagration.

The Arab League’s new assertiveness in Syria offers Turkey a way out of its dilemma and could help increase the pain level of sanctions to a degree that may bring Assad to the negotiating table. The Syrian leader has so far rejected Arab calls for a halt to the violence and has shown disdain for the League’s plan to impose sanctions of its own and taking Syria to the United Nations Security Council.

Worsening economy

Nonetheless, Arab and Turkish sanctions would boost those already enforced by the US and Europe on Syria’s banking and oil sector; halt imports of non-oil products from Syria, which constitute the bulk of the country's exports; shut down one of Syria’s last links to the international banking network; and prevent its government and businesses from opening letters of credit.

Oil production is dropping as Syria finds it increasingly difficult to find buyers for its 140,000 barrels of crude oil per day and has been unable to pay oil majors Shell and Total for their production. As a result, petroleum products such as diesel for heating are becoming scarce and Syria increasingly cannot foot its bill for imports. Syria’s state-owned oil company Sytrol last week cancelled a tender for the sale of 50,000 tonnes of fuel because of a lack of buyers. Swiss refiner Petroplus announced that it had replaced Syrian oil with Iraqi product. Government and private investment moreover has come to a halt, tourism has evaporated, industrial production is down, agriculture is impeded by military operations and unemployment has jumped to 25 per cent.

China has already expressed support for the Arab League’s pressure on Syria. Arab and Turkish sanctions would make it more difficult for Russia and India in particular as well as Western companies that supply and maintain Internet surveillance systems in Syria to spoil the game. The sanctions may not be enough for the regime to crumble, but they would be sufficient to force it to look for a political rather than a military solution that could drag the region into a war.

More than symbolic act

To be sure, making Turkish and, even more so, Arab sanctions stick could be easier said than done. Banks in Lebanon, the pillars of the Lebanese economy, are likely to be reluctant to apply the sanctions, arguing that they would have to violate the country’s stringent privacy laws. The government is unlikely to want to rock either its economic boat or relations with its big brother neighbour.

Nevertheless, the chances of Syria becoming a rare case where sanctions work are enhanced by the fact that the planned sanctions enjoy the support of significant parts of the population. They have, however, so far failed to create a sense of unity against a common enemy that is responsible for people’s misery. In fact, it is Syrians opposed to the Assad regime that are demanding tougher sanctions and tougher actions. For once, tough sanctions applied by a majority of the international community could constitute more than a symbolic act and avert the risk of a military conflict that escalates into regional war.

James M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. He has been a journalist covering the Middle East for over 30 years.

The aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush has moved to the Syrian coast amidst reports that a no fly zone is about to be imposed over the country as the U.S. Embassy in Damascus orders its citizens to leave “immediately,” while France has proposed a formal NATO military intervention.US Warship Moves To Syrian Coast as Tensions Mount 307081

“Probably the most damning evidence that the “western world” is about to do the unthinkable and invade Syria, and in the process force Iran to retaliate, is the weekly naval update from Stratfor, which always has some very interesting if always controversial view on geopolitics, where we find that for the first time in many months, CVN 77 George H.W. Bush has left its traditional theater of operations just off the Straits of Hormuz, a critical choke point, where it traditionally accompanies the Stennis, and has parked… right next to Syria,” reports Zero Hedge.

Publicly, officials are claiming that the George H.W. Bush carrier strike group is “on its way home” after being located in the Middle East for the past five months, but a specific date for the warship’s return has not been given.

According to a report in the Virginian-Pilot, the aircraft carrier will “conduct a range of operations and help maintain maritime security,” before it heads home.

As we reported yesterday, European sources quoted in Kuwait’s al Rai daily suggest that Arab states are set to impose a no fly zone over the country with the aid of Turkish jet fighters and U.S. logistical support. In modern parlence the term “no fly zone” is a euphemism for a bombing campaign, as we saw with Libya.

Although France has expressed its opposition to a no fly zone, foreign minister Alain Juppe met with Syrian National Council leader Burhan Ghalioun in Paris yesterday to assure him that NATO powers are looking at using “international troops” to “create a secure zone for civilians” by means of “humanitarian corridors, or humanitarian zones”.

A d v e r t i s e m e n t

Tensions also escalated yesterday after the U.S. Embassy in Damascus urged its citizens to leave Syria “immediately,” while Turkey’s foreign ministry told its citizens to avoid traveling through the country on their return home from Saudi Arabia.

“The U.S. Embassy continues to urge U.S. citizens in Syria to depart immediately while commercial transportation is available,” said a statement issued to the American community in Syria Wednesday and posted on the Embassy’s website. “The number of airlines serving Syria has decreased significantly since the summer, while many of those airlines remaining have reduced their number of flights.”

The Obama administration quietly pulled Ambassador Robert Ford from the country last month and has indicated he will not return.

Attacking Syria could represent an end run around creating a justification for a military assault on Iran for Israel and the United States because Iran has vowed to defend its ally. However, China and Russia have aggressively opposed any action, with Russia last week moving its warships into Syrian territorial waters – a tactic designed to discourage any NATO-led attack.

Polls have shown that the majority of Americans oppose military intervention in Syria, with just 12 per cent favoring any kind of conflict.

RSIS presents the following commentary Stepping up Sanctions: Arab and Turkish Pressures on Syria by James M. Dorsey. It is also available online at this link. (To print it, click on this link.). Kindly forward any comments or feedback to the Editor RSIS Commentaries, at RSISPublication@ntu.edu.sg

No. 175/2011 dated 24 November 2011

Stepping up Sanctions:Arab and Turkish Pressures on Syria

By James M. Dorsey

Synopsis

Pressure is mounting on Turkey to lead a potential military intervention to stop the bloodletting in Syria. However, sanctions by Arab states and Turkey on the regime of President Bashar al-Assad could become an effective policy tool.

Commentary

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is looking to Turkey rather than the United States and Europe to intervene militarily to stop the Assad regime’s violent suppression of a nine-month-old rebellion. In meetings with Turkish officials, the leader of the MB, Mohammad Riad Shakfa, and representatives of the Syrian National Council have urged Turkey to enforce a no-fly zone above Syria and, if military intervention becomes unavoidable, they want Turkey to take the lead.

Turkey is already providing tacit support to the rebel Syrian Free Army, which has a camp on the Turkish side of the border and in recent days has staged more deadly attacks on Syrian military targets. Turkey has also allowed the political opposition to use Istanbul as a base.

Turkish Dilemma

Nonetheless, despite Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s increasingly emotional denunciations of the Assad regime, Ankara is finding it difficult to step up the pressure on Syria without risking Turkish interests in the short term. Turkey’s reluctance so far to impose sanctions of its own when the Arab League is about to step up to the plate, risks its losing the moral high ground it achieved in part by taking the lead in condemning the Syrian crackdown and demanding that Israel lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Erdogan has so far been long on rhetoric and short on actions, partly because of differences between the government and the military. While Erdogan describes Syria’s crisis as Turkey’s “internal problem”, army chief of staff General Necdet Ozel recently insisted that it was “primarily the internal problem of that country”. As a result, Erdogan, in addition to holding back on sanctions and dropping plans to create a humanitarian buffer zone on the Turkish-Syrian border, has yet to fulfill his promise to visit camps for Syrian refugees in eastern Turkey.

Turkish officials fear that imposing sanctions, let alone overt military intervention, could open Pandora’s Box with Syria and its ally Iran; Tehran could be pushed to increase its support for the Turkish Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) that has already stepped up its attacks on military targets in southeastern Turkey. In return, Turkey would have to step up its retaliation against PKK bases in northern Iraq and support unrest in some of Iran’s more restive provinces such as Eastern Azerbaijan whose majority Turkic population resents Persian rule. All in all, the crisis in Syria would risk becoming a regional conflagration.

The Arab League’s new assertiveness in Syria offers Turkey a way out of its dilemma and could help increase the pain level of sanctions to a degree that may bring Assad to the negotiating table. The Syrian leader has so far rejected Arab calls for a halt to the violence and has shown disdain for the League’s plan to impose sanctions of its own and taking Syria to the United Nations Security Council.

Worsening economy

Nonetheless, Arab and Turkish sanctions would boost those already enforced by the US and Europe on Syria’s banking and oil sector; halt imports of non-oil products from Syria, which constitute the bulk of the country's exports; shut down one of Syria’s last links to the international banking network; and prevent its government and businesses from opening letters of credit.

Oil production is dropping as Syria finds it increasingly difficult to find buyers for its 140,000 barrels of crude oil per day and has been unable to pay oil majors Shell and Total for their production. As a result, petroleum products such as diesel for heating are becoming scarce and Syria increasingly cannot foot its bill for imports. Syria’s state-owned oil company Sytrol last week cancelled a tender for the sale of 50,000 tonnes of fuel because of a lack of buyers. Swiss refiner Petroplus announced that it had replaced Syrian oil with Iraqi product. Government and private investment moreover has come to a halt, tourism has evaporated, industrial production is down, agriculture is impeded by military operations and unemployment has jumped to 25 per cent.

China has already expressed support for the Arab League’s pressure on Syria. Arab and Turkish sanctions would make it more difficult for Russia and India in particular as well as Western companies that supply and maintain Internet surveillance systems in Syria to spoil the game. The sanctions may not be enough for the regime to crumble, but they would be sufficient to force it to look for a political rather than a military solution that could drag the region into a war.

More than symbolic act

To be sure, making Turkish and, even more so, Arab sanctions stick could be easier said than done. Banks in Lebanon, the pillars of the Lebanese economy, are likely to be reluctant to apply the sanctions, arguing that they would have to violate the country’s stringent privacy laws. The government is unlikely to want to rock either its economic boat or relations with its big brother neighbour.

Nevertheless, the chances of Syria becoming a rare case where sanctions work are enhanced by the fact that the planned sanctions enjoy the support of significant parts of the population. They have, however, so far failed to create a sense of unity against a common enemy that is responsible for people’s misery. In fact, it is Syrians opposed to the Assad regime that are demanding tougher sanctions and tougher actions. For once, tough sanctions applied by a majority of the international community could constitute more than a symbolic act and avert the risk of a military conflict that escalates into regional war.

James M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. He has been a journalist covering the Middle East for over 30 years.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

The attached report on the Obama drive for war on China during his recent tour of Asia will appear in the next issue of EIR. The introductory paragraphs are included here, with the full article attached. Mike Billington

Obama’s Asia Trip Had Only One Purpose: War on China

by Mike Billington

Nov. 20—The self-imagined Emperor of AmericaBarack Obama, while planning new wars against Syriaand Iran, which are recognized by a growing number ofinternational leaders to be a certain spark for global nuclearwar against Russia and China, has completed anine-day tour of Asia which served one and only onepurpose: to launch a new strategic confrontation withChina, intended to prepare the world for the comingwar.

The so-called “justifications” for this global confrontationare as vacuous and deceitful as those used tolaunch the wars on Iraq and Libya, or for the proposedwars on Syria and Iran. It is the British Empire, throughits puppet Obama, which is out to destroy any possibleopposition to the world dictatorship of the bankrupt financialoligarchy, and to carry out the demands of theBritish monarchy to rid the world of its “excess population.”The huge population of China, and Asia generally,are a primary target for their genocide.

The Obama tour included both military and economicconfrontation with China; deploying new strategicU.S. forces in Australia and the Philippines to solidifya strategic “ring around China”; coercingSoutheast Asian nations to join in a U.S.-guided confrontationwith China over territorial disputes in theSouth China Sea; threatening China over the sovereigncontrol of its currency; and forging an anti-China “freetrade pact” among a “coalition of the willing” in theAsia-Pacific region.

In the course of three summits of Asia-Pacific nationsover the nine-day period, Obama succeeded inhijacking the proposed agenda of the majority of theAsian nations—which focused on the disastrousglobal financial-economic crisis in the trans-Atlanticregion and its impact on Asia—imposing instead theimperial stamp of the lunatic emperor on his subjectnations. [[see attached for full report]]

A message and special bulletin from Richard Maybury, who writes the very successful newsletter "Chaostan."

Bulletin:Prepare for the Coming Riots

By Richard J. Maybury

Richard: Let's see if I understand this situation. Israel is getting prepared to fight a war against Syria and Iran, and if they have to do so, they will fight this war down to the last American soldier and the last American bullet. Just like they did in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. Meanwhile, on our border, the Mexican drug cartels command a force of over 100,000 fully armed troops and many of those troops are armed with American weapons supplied courtesy and compliments of the U.S. Government.

Will the morons and the mentally challenged ever figure this out.

April 1, 2009

Dear Reader,

Scores of times throughout history, we've seen today's type of economic calamity repeated on a national level, but never before has it happened globally. This is the first time the world reserve currency has been fiat paper that can be created infinitely, producing unlimited amounts of malinvestment. Until 1971, the global reserve currency had been gold for thousands of years. Now the fiat chickens are coming home to roost.

As I said in the 9/08 EWR, the malinvestment caused by the fiat dollar is so pervasive that I doubt any business or individual in the US is where they should be, doing what they ought to, at the correct wage or price. We don't know what will happen, but the many national examples of fiat-caused malinvestment give us some clues. Looking at 2,500 years of economic history, I cannot see how this calamity won't lead to riots.

I also expect an increase in violent crime, including more home invasion robberies and murders. Judging by what I overhear in grocery store lines and other public places, hatred of the rich is growing fast. If you are better off than someone who considers himself not wealthy, you are becoming his target.

Long ago, Gary North coined the phrase "the politics of envy," and he was certainly right.

Comrade Obama's hurt-the-rich campaign can only make things worse. Raising taxes - taking more money - from the people who create jobs will only produce more unemployment and anguish; and desperate people do desperate things.

In terms of judgment, acquiring political power is equivalent to undergoing a lobotomy.

Your geographic location...

...determines your risk, and the precautions you need to take. If you live in Buzzardbreath, Wyoming, you probably don't need to take any precautions other than to accumulate a one-month supply of food, medical products, and other necessities, against a possible disruption of truck and rail shipments. Three months would be better.

I believe a 30-day stockpile of all of life's necessities is a must for everyone, always, not just in the current emergency. Life is full of nasty surprises: floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, blizzards, famines, plagues, you name it. Even if your local area is unaffected, supplies that come from far away might be disrupted.

Good items to begin with are food, prescription drugs, toilet paper, soap, fresh water, matches, and a camping stove and fuel for cooking.

Also cash - small bills and coins. Banks in your area might close for a while, and if you need to buy something, the seller may be unable to make change.

The Lexus of freeze-dried foods is Mountain House. You don't need to cook it, it's reasonably palatable, and the #10 cans have a shelf-life of 30 years if stored in a cool, dry place.

If you live in the center of a big city, the risks are much greater, as you already know if you are old enough to have watched the Watts Riot in 1965 or the Los Angeles Riot in 1992. Both lasted a hair raising six days. In the Watts Riot, 34 were killed and more than 1,000 wounded. In the Los Angeles riot, 53 were killed and up to 2,000 wounded.

I counted the riots in the US during the 20th century. There were at least 54 large ones.

The January riot in Oakland was, I'm afraid, only the beginning of what's coming.

In the following paragraphs I will write some things you may find disturbing, because civilized people don' t like to think in ways that are necessary to protect against violence. But that's the political reality we face. (It must be reality - if it were a hallucination it would be more rational.)

Three examples of what's probably coming...

During a riot in Newburgh, NY in 1972, a band of youths chased a man into a home. The crowd broke down the door and was about to enter when the homeowner dissuaded them with a shotgun.

Last year in Tennessee, a convicted rapist broke into a home and tried to rape two young sisters. One sister escaped and ran for help. A neighbor shot and killed the rapist.

In Ripley, MS in 2004, a man forced his way into the home of an 88-year old woman. He raped and robbed her, but before he could do worse, she got to her gun and shot him.1

There is a popular assumption...

...promoted by politicians, the mainstream press and Hollywood, that guns cause crime, and the general public should not be allowed to own them.

Where is the evidence?

Every day in the news I see reports of crimes committed at schools, stores, restaurants, hospitals, even churches.

Not once in all my 62 years have I heard of a crime at a gun range.

I've heard of accidents - twice, in 62 years - but never a crime.

By that measure, it seems to me that gun ranges are the safest places on the planet.

Why do you suppose that is?

On February 20th...

...the State Department issued a travel alert for Americans going to Mexico. Drug cartels have, in effect, seceded from the union and "large firefights have taken place in many towns and cities across Mexico," says the alert.2 The US Defense Department estimates that two of the cartels together have about 100,000 troops, which rivals the Mexican government's army of 130,000.3 The greatest increases in violence are along the US border,4 which has begun to resemble Afghanistan.

In fact, in recent months, the number of Mexicans killed in the violence has been running much higher than the number of Americans killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan together.

Add the economic crisis, and Mexico - Mexistan - could be on the brink of chaos. Millions of desperate refugees could start moving north, and within the crowds, there would be all sorts of hungry vermin, including gangs. These thugs will certainly be receptive to Obama's hurt-the-rich rhetoric, and compared to them, all readers of EWR are rich.

In my Special Bulletin #1 on our web site, September 22nd, I suggested you...

...get a shotgun

Gun shops are being cleaned out by worried customers. It's becoming difficult to acquire the types of guns and ammunition suitable for self defense.

The good news is that you don't need an arsenal. You won't be facing trained troops who are pursuing a military objective.

The bad news is that if you live in or near a big city, the most likely threat will be thugs searching for liquor and women.

I hope you will do what you can to make sure the women in your life can defend themselves.

The U.S. Department of Justice says there are more than two million criminals in prison or jail in the US.

If two million have been caught, how many do you think are still roaming the streets?

No one knows, but a five to one ratio would not surprise me.

If that ratio is correct, it means, on average, one out of every 23 adults you see each day is a criminal on the loose.

If you are a new subscriber, you may be wondering how I feel about...

...gun controls

I am absolutely, totally in favor of strict gun controls - I believe every woman should be legally required to carry a 12-gauge pump equalizer at all times.

In her closet I'd like to see her have an array of equalizers in various colors to match her shoes and purses. Remington makes the highly chic Model 870 in pink.

Loaded with #4 buckshot (not #4 shot, #4 buckshot, there's a big difference), one pull of the 870's trigger is the same as hitting the assailant with a .22 pistol, 27 times.

To me, gun controls are, more than anything else, a deceitful way to make women helpless, so that they feel weak unless they have a man to defend them. It keeps them psychologically subordinate, and desirous of a powerful Big Brother government for protection.

If a woman's liberation does not begin with her Second Amendment rights, then it cannot exist. There's nothing more basic than the right of self defense.

In short, what I'm talking about is personal independence. Reader D.S. understands. He writes that emergency preparedness, including the most important aspect, self defense, "is really about stopping a kind of sleepwalk through life and asserting an awareness of one's individuality. It's about being much more in charge of your whole life. I think anyone well-prepared for an emergency is living a much better life today, even if there is never an emergency."

The most important thing...

... is to be well trained. This doesn't necessarily mean marksmanship lessons - they can come later - it means a self-defense course in which you are taught how to use firearms safely, when you can and can't use them legally, and defensive tactics. Lots of helpful information at www.nra.org. Also check the Yellow Pages for gun dealers, gunsmiths, firearms training, gun ranges, and self-defense instruction. And try:

www.ableammo.com

www.midwayusa.com

Two excellent firearms schools are

www.gunsite.com and www.frontsight.com

Be familiar with your local laws.

Gun shows can be good places to buy all sorts of emergency preparedness items, as well as guns.

And, practice, practice, practice, until operating your weapon is as much second nature as driving your car. In a life-or-death situation you need to think about the criminal not the gun.

Skeet and trap are excellent practice for improving skill with your shotgun. Sporting clays is even better. If you can consistently score 50% at sporting clays, then in a self defense situation, the assailant won't have a chance.

Sporting clays costs about the same as golf, and it's great fun, I love it. For pictures, see www.coyoteclays.com.

Training has an added benefit

...you are like me these days, you are wired tight as a violin string, waiting for what's coming. You want to do something to improve your situation. Making emergency preparations helps relieve the tension, and honing marksmanship goes a long way toward creating the feeling that, now I'm ready for anything.

Why not rely on the police to protect you? Because there are very few of them, and they are not likely to get to you in time. Police protection is mostly bluff. The NYPD web site reports that in New York City, the total uniformed strength is 37,838 - which includes those behind desks - in a population of 8.3 million.

The idea that if you are attacked the police will get there in time to save you is one of the most absurd lies Americans are taught. Hospital emergency rooms and cemeteries are littered with people who found out it wasn't so.

Ask any cop. Criminals are, for the most part, as stupid as they are vicious; but one lesson they learned early from schoolyard bullies is, they can get away with almost anything if they are quick.

In most cases, the job of the police is to call an ambulance and fill out a report. Maybe they will catch the attacker someday, but that won't do you any good at the moment you are facing him helpless.

Let me remind you, during the 20th century in the US, there were more than 54 large riots.

Which guns?

...this is the Early Warning Report, so here is your warning: you have a right to defend yourself, so get your weapons and ammunition now while you still can.

Which ones? It's a matter of ancient and widespread controversy. You should definitely read the book Armed and Female by Paxton Quigley. Also read anything by Jeff Cooper.

Here are my opinions.

For a handgun, Jim Powell is fond of saying, "the small gun you always take with you is more effective than the big gun you leave at home."

A pistol is so hard to aim it's good only for short ranges, out to, say, 20 feet.

The shotgun is a master blaster, devastating up to 30 yards, and nasty out to 50.

If you live in an open area where a rifle might be necessary, the semi-automatic Ruger mini-14 .223 caliber with 20-round magazines is equivalent to a military battle rifle. Yet, it has very little recoil, so even a small person can use it comfortably while being extremely effective out to 200 yards.

Your main objective is to knock the attacker down and put him out of the fight with the first shot. The attacker will be full of adrenalin, so it's not enough to punch a hole in him; you need to hit him hard.

A .38 special produces roughly 200 foot-pounds of force. My wife would tell you that she would not trust her life, or mine, to anything less.

At short range, the .38 will do the job, unless the thug is hopped up on drugs.

A shotgun blast can destroy anything that walks on land in North America.

Ammunition...

...will last at least 50 years if stored in an airtight container in a cool, dry place.

Get one supply for actual self-defense, and another for practice.

For self-defense, 100 rounds for each of the two or three weapons would probably be fine.

For practice, it's hard to imagine having too much, since supplies are limited and you may not be able to get any for a while.

Practice...

... at least once per week until you are proficient, then at least every six months after that.

Don't be squeamish. Bull's-eye targets are fine for honing accuracy, but silhouette targets teach you where to hit a real assailant.

Conclusion

There's a lot of evil loose in the land, and I think we will soon see much more. It's unlikely this economic calamity is the trumped up Chicken Little scaremongering you've heard from the mainstream news media in the past. This time it's real, and it's here now. The fiat paper money house of cards is finally collapsing.

Obama's bolstering of the left's hurt-the-rich campaign will lead not only to the destruction of jobs, but to violent attacks on anyone who appears more prosperous than the attackers. Envy rules.

As I said in February, I don't think the chaos will last more than three to five years, but at times and in some places, it's likely to be awful.

You have no obligation to be helpless. Your right to protect yourself and those you love is inalienable. Get the weapons and training you need to do it safely, and do it now while you still can.

Again, this economic crisis is shaping up to be the biggest ever, and 2,500 years of economic history tell us what to expect. In riots, the cutthroats search for liquor and women.

I want you and yours to come through it safely, so I hope you will do what you can to make sure all the women (and men) in your life can defend themselves.

Typically, as a person's marksmanship improves, the fear and feeling of helplessness evaporates. You will see a rise in personal confidence, and this will suffuse the person's entire life, leading to greater happiness and peace of mind.

By thinking things through ahead of time, and being prepared, you increase your chances to be just a spectator in this crisis - and hopefully a wealthier one - instead of a victim.

I apologize for dragging you into a description of unpleasant realities, but you don't subscribe to Early Warning Report to hear about sports and entertainment. As we saw in Hurricane Katrina, when people find out that the government isn't going to save them, they go nuts, and the chaos becomes a cover for barbarians to prey on the helpless. So, don't be helpless.

I think about you and yours all the time, and plan to be here with you through it all. I'm confident the new world waiting for us on the other side of this crisis will be a much better place, and I want every one of my readers to be there to enjoy it.

I hope you will pass this bulletin along to everyone you care about.

Sincerely,sig

1 All three examples are from the National Rifle Association web site, The Armed Citizen.2 U.S. State Department website.3 "100,000 foot soldiers...," WASH. TIMES website, 3 Mar 09.4 U.S. State Department website.

About Me

ROLAND SAN JUAN was a researcher, management consultant, inventor, a part time radio broadcaster and a publishing director. He died last November 25, 2008 after suffering a stroke. His staff will continue his unfinished work to inform the world of the untold truths. Please read Erick San Juan's articles at: ericksanjuan.blogspot.com This blog is dedicated to the late Max Soliven, a FILIPINO PATRIOT.
DISCLAIMER - We do not own or claim any rights to the articles presented in this blog. They are for information and reference only for whatever it's worth. They are copyrighted to their rightful owners.
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